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Prime Minister Gordon Brown is being urged by his supporters to sack David Miliband following the controversial newspaper article which sparked wild speculation about the Foreign Secretary’s leadership ambitions.

Allies of the Premier told the Daily Telegraph newspaper that Mr Miliband had behaved “disgracefully and disloyally” in writing the article and refusing to rule out a leadership challenge, while another said the Foreign Secretary’s ego had “clouded his judgment”.

It followed a feverish day in Westminster in which Mr Miliband first wrote an article in The Guardian newspaper setting out his vision for Labour’s future without mentioning the embattled Prime Minister and then discussed it at a press conference which was meant to be about UK relations with Italy.

It was widely seen as the opening move in a bid for the top job.

Under intense questioning from reporters, Mr Miliband said Mr Brown had the “values and vision” to run the country successfully.

“Can Gordon lead us into the next election and win? Yes, I’m absolutely certain about that,” he said, adding: “I’m not campaigning for anything other than a successful Labour Government.”

But he ducked the question of whether he would rule himself out of a future leadership contest and declined to say whether he believed Mr Brown was the only person who could lead Britain through its current economic difficulties.

That did little to appease Mr Brown’s supporters, who are angry at both the timing and the tone of the Foreign Secretary’s actions – which came while the PM is on holiday in Suffolk.

In the article, he wrote: “New Labour won three elections by offering real change, not just in policy but in the way we do politics. We must do so again.”

It followed a period of intense speculation about a possible coup against Mr Brown in the wake of Labour’s humiliating by-election defeat in formerly rock-solid Glasgow East last week, with some backbenchers openly calling for him to quit and many more expressing frustration in private.